The game is changing...

As usual while taking care of the mundane requirements at my place of work, still recovering from the shock of having spent a 'working weekend':), a chain of thought just flashed past by.

The rules of the game are changing...

I was thinking of some of the big ticket items, that have proverbial - 'revolutionized the internet'. Some egs - twitter, friendfeed, facebook, plazes etc. And am sure the list is endless, but I belong to the category of consumers who are less initiated..:)

Anyways, pulling ourselves back to the track and talking about these big-ticket items. Lets call them - 'experiences' (as a non-techie consumer, my choice of semantics would be different, so beg your pardon in advance). These are 'disruptive innovations' brought about by inventors, innovators, entrepreneurs or pure enthusiasts who want to fight. These are one hell of crazy zealots (reminding me of king Leonidas and his army of 300), the son-of-guns who are always 'thinking'. These are human-catalysts, who are changing the 'rules of the game'

What surprises me is that changing the rules has always been a prerogative of the strongest! Be it life or business. Traditional marketing always witnessed a larger player changing the rules of the game and thereby exploiting / expanding the category - be it the 'chota pepsi' or 'cadbury's re-positioning itself as a sweet for celebrations', or the most recent TATA Nano.

But this doesnt seem to be happening (that often) in the world less explored (the world of internet!) . Most often than not, these 'experiences' are being delivered by the lesser known players! It seems that the larger players are either finding it difficult to keep up the pace with the smaller (but agile) players, or they have re-aligned their mindsets for 'inorganic growth'. Either case there is a transfer of creative power from the giants of the internet to the new saplings.

The jury is still out on whether this strategy is right or wrong. Logically I would want to assume that the large scale players have the strategic advantage of more resources, more experience and more artillery (reminds me of Sun Tzu), but because they might not be 'concentrating' on 'experience', they might be losing out on a big chunk of 'organic' growth. They are of course still large players in the 'game', but the game itself might be changing....